GA Considers Replacing Textbooks With iPads

Being a true New England snob I tend to give "The South" a lot of grief, and it's mostly unnecessary. Case in point: as a Massachusetts resident in 2002 I enrolled at the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!) and was charged the measly Out of State Tuition of something in the range of $10,000 (at present, tuition and fees for out-of-staters is $26,946 according to the CollegeBoard). Meanwhile, when I transferred to the University of New Hampshire in 2003 I paid in the ballpark of $15,000 as a resident. Public Universities in the South have a great reputation for keeping education affordable for their in-state students (and even vagabonds like myself). Moreover, Georgia afforded (and still does, although there's news of cut-backs) its in-state students the ability to attend one of their public universities (including UGA) for free courtesy of the HOPE Scholarship, as long as they had a 3.0 coming in and maintained that average throughout college career. To me, Georgia's HOPE Scholarship represents real forward thinking in terms of students' right higher education and reminds me that it's incredibly ignorant to assume that New England is the Mecca for evolutions in education.

And now Georgia is joining the ranks of schools in New York, Virginia, and California by considering ditching print textbooks in Middle School classrooms and equipping every student with an iPad (story here). While there are concerns over the infancy of the technology and the near future introduction of other tablet products, GA Senator Tommie Williams notes that students are becoming accustomed to learning in a digital environment and schools must evolve to meet their changing needs. Which is more risky: allowing students and teachers to experiment with new technologies and ways of learning or handing students out-dated, sometimes inaccurate content? At least the former provides a learning opportunity for the entire community...a "let's try this together and see what works" approach.

While the Senator and others involved are reportedly just "in talks" with Apple to go through with this initiative, I'm impressed by their willingness to adapt and experiment. The potential success of these initiatives in New York, Virginia, California, and now Georgia should nudge those of us in higher education to ask, "what happens when these students wind up at our institutions in 5-8 years?" How will we evolve and innovate to be able to sustain the learning styles these students will be accustomed to?